I'm a 41 year old male in San Jose, California, and have been
barefooting for the last couple of years. I have long blond hair, and
I wear a toe ring. At first, I was very shy about going out barefoot
in public, and was constantly overly self conscious about my bare
feet, almost apologetic. As I did it more and more, though, I gained
confidence, and these days have almost no qualms at all about going
barefoot in public places. I've found it helpful to set a few "rules"
for myself. The main one is that I always wear flip-flops (which I
keep in my car) when I enter a restaurant. However, once seated, I
immediately remove them and set them aside, under the table. I never
have any problems. If I have to use the restroom, I will generally
slip them back on, but if I get the right vibe from the place, I'll
just go barefoot. No one ever says anything.
Other fun places to go barefoot include the grocery store, the
library, the bookstore, caf=E9s, farmers' markets, shopping malls (I
hate shopping malls, but it's a fun place to be seen barefoot) and
classical music concerts (I've even gone to the symphony in Santa Cruz
barefoot, and no one said a word! Plenty of stares though, of
course.). Perhaps my favorite place to go barefoot, though, is the
minor league baseball games we have here in San Jose. I get the usual
stares, but never any comments. (One exception: in the restroom one
day, some guy said something like, "That's ****ing nasty, coming in
here with bare feet." I replied by saying something like, "It's a good
thing you didn't do it, then!" He didn't say anything more.)
I also love to get my soles dirty. I'll walk on blacktop and through
oil stains as much as I can. Then I like to show off my dirty soles in
public. Kind of a fetish thing, I guess.
On occasion, I have gotten some positive reinforcement from time to
time. One day, at the Campbell Farmers' Market, a girl came up to me
and told me how cool it was to see a guy go barefoot, and so
comfortably.
I hope to offer encouragement to other would-be barefooters to just
kick off your shoes and do it. It takes an adjustment, and you may
encounter some negative reactions, but keep it up. The more of us
there are, the less taboo it will become in this country. I has quite
heartened to see a young barefoot guy in Barnes and Noble last
night... I'm usually the only one!
I'd love to hear other barefooters' stories, on this newsgroup, or
through email.
You can email me at me.barefoot@[EMAIL PROTECTED]
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